31–40 of 75 posts
Now listening to a new band in Spotify. Thanks. Hope the meager cents adds up from hundreds or thousands of users.
http://blog.earbits.com/online_radio/spotify-replaces-piracy...
"The service may do a good job fighting illegal file sharing but it also does a great job of eliminating any motivation to buy an album that you can listen to through the service."
In Europe Spotify's been available for a while. I was in on the beta when their catalog was a lot more restricted, and it was already impressive. With the majors on board, it's hard to see the freight train stopping.
How can one reconcile how wonderful it is for consumers with the payment statements that make us musicians cringe? I think of it as all-you-can-eat iTunes for very little per month; the recent competitors/alternatives pale in comparison.
They deserve a lot of credit for building a workable model that makes iTunes look like a rip off (I hate that software).
But they further dilute the value of recorded music, which is a huge paradigm change for the music industry that will ruin the viability of many musicians.
Perhaps we can re-educate the public to value music again by taking a pledge to pay for it, à la pg-patents? Something tells me this new, 'recorded music ~ free' paradigm is here to stay.
The songwriter/composer of a song (not a recording of a song, but the actual melody, lyrics) gets a performance royalty each time a song is played in "public" (internet and broadcast radio, in the elevator, at a bar, etc). This is the royalty BMI, ASCAP, and SESAC collect. If the song is recorded and sold by someone, the songwriter gets mechanical royalties for each unit sold. If memory serves me correctly, the compulsory rate right now is 8 cents per unit sold. If the song in any form (recorded, sung by a drunk dude, etc) is used in something like a movie or a TV show, the songwriter gets a synchronization royalty. I've seen sync royalties range from $5,000 to $250,000. Songwriters are usually signed to publishing companies. Publishing companies are mostly owned by record labels themselves (or their parent companies). Publishing companies take a cut of the songwriters' royalties, but not as big as the cut record labels take from recording artists. I've seen rates ranging from 10% to 30%.
On the other hand, the recording artist gets pretty much whatever the record label decides to give them as described in the recording contract. The label will own the song recordings, not the artist. Recording artists (and record labels) do not get any royalties for public performance. Yes, when a song is played on FM radio, the record label doesn't get a penny. The only exception to this is when the song is played on "interactive" services on the Internet. This is the royalty Sound Exchange collects. In those cases, both the songwriter and whoever owns the copyright to the sound recording (the record label) get royalties. The main sources of revenue for the label are from these royalties, and from selling the sound recording in stores and online. They take a large chunk (60-70%) of this and distribute the rest to the song's recording artist, producer, etc.
Consider for a moment this alternate viewpoint. What if submitting a song to was kinda like submitting a blog to . You don't get paid for blogging, but if you produce enough good content, you can create an audience and then sell them other things later on. Smart bloggers give out their content for free, then charge for premium services and products like consulting, books, podcasts, screencasts, merch, etc. Seems like…
The Earbits guys (frighteningly prolific bloggers) wrote about Spotify recently: http://blog.earbits.com/online_radio/spotify-replaces-piracy... "The service may do a good job fighting illegal file sharing but it also does a great job of eliminating any motivation to buy an album that you can listen to through the service." In Europe Spotify's been available for a while. I was in on the beta when their catalog was a…
Imagine Pandora's site down for a day: "Take this moment of silence to think about how important music is to you." That seems like a win for Pandora anyway, since they have a net loss of about $20,000 a day right now thanks to overpriced royalties.
I didn't see any mention of songwriting royalties, which can be very significant if they also write their own music. The songwriter/composer of a song (not a recording of a song, but the actual melody, lyrics) gets a performance royalty each time a song is played in "public" (internet and broadcast radio, in the elevator, at a bar, etc). This is the royalty BMI, ASCAP, and SESAC collect. If the song is recorded and s…
However, the implication that an outsider might draw from your comment is that, say, the band that wrote the original post might hope to make those kinds of royalties since they (presumably?) wrote the melody and lyrics to the original song.
If they sign to a major label and have a hit that continues to rake in those royalties, that is wonderful. If one of their songs is used in a big Hollywood film, and for covers, etc, great.
But that's a lot of ifs. Even non musicians know the truth now, they've all read "Courtney Love Does the Math" on Salon.
The reality of most musicians, even those signed to major labels, is far from a rosy economic picture. It seems to me that to imply otherwise is disingenuous.
Didn't mean for that last part to sound like an attack, it's just that reading your (very well written) comment does not solve the problem of the musicians who wrote the original post.
If the band members are also the authors/composers of their recorded material, they will receive slightly more than what is suggested here, since they will also be due mechanical and/or performance royalties from various services. That being said, it's the best/worst time to be a musical artist - you can distribute yourself online (the biggest music marketplace) and receive a MUCH larger chunk of the revenue than eve…
>>it takes a label or label-like organization to sell records with the new digital distribution methods and physical media almost on the decline, record labels hardly 'sell records' any more. They just do a huge marketing push for the artist. If indie musicians can figure out a way to market themselves, they really wouldnt need a record label.
"marketing themselves" is a pipe dream that has only worked for a tiny percentage of indie artists - a huge industry has built up around this effort, and just like the major labels made lots of money off of their artists, this industry is making lots of money off these indie artists, just exploiting economies of scale of artists instead of consumers.
Spotify is such a rip-off for musicians; I love the way these guys highlighted that in a light-hearted way. But the economics of the alternatives are not going to make anyone rich, either. For future reference: if you sign-up via CDBaby, there is a one-time fee of $35 (or $55 if they create your bar-code) and you are set-up with iTunes, Amazon, etc, without a yearly fee. Even though Derek's gone it's still a good dea…
Even though they look like ripoffs with their tiny payments Spotify and other subscription models have a few advantages for the artist over download models. For a start the artist gets paid even if the listener is just trying the track, hates it and never listens again. The main advantage though is the open ended payment model. The OP should compare the 20 year revenue for each track. I listen to some tracks from 199…
Most people, and most albums, though, are not going to outperform those economics. Simply put, $5-10 a month for access to 15M tracks is a joke and a big loss for the industry. I look forward to the labels realizing it and walking away.
I didn't see any mention of songwriting royalties, which can be very significant if they also write their own music. The songwriter/composer of a song (not a recording of a song, but the actual melody, lyrics) gets a performance royalty each time a song is played in "public" (internet and broadcast radio, in the elevator, at a bar, etc). This is the royalty BMI, ASCAP, and SESAC collect. If the song is recorded and s…
syncs right now go from free to maybe 50k, unless it is a massive song (thing the Beatles) in a massive campaign or feature. the average network tv sync right now is prob around 5 grand all-in, meaning 2.5k goes to the owner of the sound recording copyright (the label or artist) and 2.5k goes to the owner of the composition (the songwriter(s) or publisher(s)).
Music publishers can take anywhere from 10% (for an admin deal) to 50% (for a co-publishing deal). Bigger percentages involve advances (recoupable payments against future royalties), but also much longer terms (5-10+ years).
Songwriters don't get publishing deals unless their songs are being performed or sold, and there are lots and lots of indie publishers out there, along with the majors as you mention.
In many territories outside of the US, artists and master recording copyright owners do get paid for public performance - in the UK for example PPL is one society that pays some of these rightsholders for public performance.